


Down to the Wire

by jacksparrow589



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Wishful Thinking, far too much dialogue, just let them be teens and not worry about marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-12 23:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksparrow589/pseuds/jacksparrow589
Summary: “Miss Cuthbert, please, I need to talk to Anne.”Marilla did something she never thought she’d do to a Blythe: she closed ranks. “I’m not sure that’s what Anne needs or wants right now.”Gilbert knew that Marilla must have heard what he had been off to do. “Please! I just… need to apologize. To set things straight.”He’d grown so much in the last few years, but right now, Gilbert Blythe was every inch a confused and desperate teenager. Perhaps not quite a child, but certainly not the confident young man he often carried himself as. Which meant…  “You didn’t propose, did you?”-----Post 3x09. Gilbert comes back from Charlottetown and seeks to make amends with Anne.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Marilla Cuthbert & Anne Shirley
Comments: 16
Kudos: 295





	Down to the Wire

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely wishful thinking inspired by that damn pen and the still of Anne leaning out her window.

Marilla didn’t know who she was expecting when the tap on the door sounded, but nobody entered. Anne’s friends were welcome to come right in, and Rachel Lynde did whether she was invited or not. Bash wasn’t often over, so it might be him…

She opened the door, and found that she’d had the correct household, but not the correct resident. Gilbert Blythe stood on the porch, managing to look both relieved and distressed at the same time. “Miss Cuthbert, please, I need to talk to Anne.”

Marilla did something she never thought she’d do to a Blythe: she closed ranks. “I’m not sure that’s what _Anne_ needs or wants right now.”

Gilbert knew that Marilla must have heard what he had been off to do. “Please! I just… need to apologize. To set things straight.”

He’d grown so much in the last few years, but right now, Gilbert Blythe was every inch a confused and desperate teenager. Perhaps not quite a child, but certainly not the confident young man he often carried himself as. Which meant… “You didn’t propose, did you?”

Gilbert shook his head, not trusting his voice, and not wanting to tell Marilla he’d had every intention of making himself propose until the very last minute.

Marilla sighed. “I’ll go ask if she wants to talk with you. But I’m respecting her word as final, and I suggest you do, too. Is there… anything particular you want me to convey?”

Gilbert weighed his options. He wanted it all to come from him, but if Anne didn’t know he hadn’t proposed, there was no way she would talk with him right now. “That I didn’t propose. The rest… should come from me.”

Marilla nodded and went up the stairs. She reappeared less than a minute later, but the wait was agonizingly long. “She… didn’t give me much of an answer. But being that she didn’t say that she wanted to talk with you...” Marilla gave Gilbert a sympathetic look. “Please, just give her a day or two. I know she’ll want to, but she needs the space right now.”

Gilbert nodded and turned to go, but he paused at the door. “I’m really sorry for the distress this has caused Anne.”

“I know you are. Anne knows you are, in her own way. As soon as she’s ready, you two can talk.”

Gilbert walked out to finish the last leg of the journey home. He’d nearly gotten himself into the saddle, when a cry caught his attention.

“Gilbert!”

He looked around, bewildered. Finally, he looked up to Anne’s window. Anne was leaning out. “Anne...”

Even from the ground, he could see her bite her lip. “Wait there!” she called. “I’ll be right there!”

For the second time, seconds seem to stretch to eternity. Gilbert’s heart pounded in his ears in a way it hadn’t in Charlottetown. This time, he was terrified. This time, he had everything to lose.

Anne appeared at the door, and walked slowly out to him, as if she wasn’t sure she should keep walking. When she finally stood close enough to talk normally, but still maintain a respectful distance, she took a deep, shuddering breath, just managing to hold down another wave of despair and tears. “Why didn’t you propose?”

“I… couldn’t. I know I had every reason to. I thought you’d told me to. But it just… wasn’t right. I said I’d know. And with Winifred, I didn’t. Know, I mean. And then I remembered what Mary said, and then I found your pen in my pocket, and I knew… What?” He stopped himself at Anne’s completely fallen face.

“So, my note meant nothing to you, then?”

“Your note?”

“Yes, my note! Where I… where I asked for my pen back! Where I said I...” Anne’s voice faltered.

“_What_ note, Anne?” Gilbert’s voice was soft.

Anne blinked, comprehension of the situation slowly dawning. “Before I… the night before you left, I wanted to talk to you, but you weren’t there. I left a note. Bash’s mother saw me write it… saw me leave it on the table...”

Gilbert still wasn’t quite following, but he did know one thing. “I never saw your note. If I had, I would have read it. What did it say?”

“‘I’m sorry I was confused before. I’m not anymore.’” Anne stopped and took several deep breaths. She tried to look Gilbert in the eye, but every time she tried, tears threatened. She started and stopped several times before she was able to quaver, “‘I love you.’” She laughed bitterly at herself. “And then I added a postscript to ask for my pen back.”

Gilbert took a step closer, and Anne rocked back a step. “Anne, I never saw that note. If I had, I would have come straight to you first so that at least you would have known_ before _I went to Charlottetown.”

“That might have been a little difficult seeing as I was trying to rescue Ka’Kwet,” Anne muttered.

Gilbert made a mental note to ask about that later. “Do you still mean what you said in that note? Do you still love me?”

Anne sighed miserably, a few new tears sliding down her cheeks. “A lot of things can change in a day, but that certainly hasn’t, and believe me, I have _tried_.”

“Would you stop trying if I told you I feel the same way about you?” Gilbert waited for Anne to look at him. “I love you, Anne. I thought—stupidly—that after that night by the fire, you were saying that it wasn’t enough, and with the world laid at my feet, I tried to agree, but at the end of the day, I just couldn’t. So I went to Charlottetown to try to force myself into it anyway, but when it came time to declare my intentions, well, a different one came out. I felt your pen in my pocket and I realized that I’d be an idiot to trade certain feelings for a certain life. I remembered Miss Stacy offering to talk to Emily Oak. I remembered Mary telling me to marry only for love. I’d been thinking of you all day the day before trying to say good bye and I just _couldn’t_… But I could say good bye to Winifred. And I could come back to the opportunities I have here with the people I care about. With you.”

One of Anne’s hands was covering her mouth. The other was wrapped around her stomach as though she had to physically hold herself together. She was trying desperately not to cry. Gilbert’s own eyes were filling, she could see, and this time, when he stepped closer so that he could reach her hand, she didn’t back away.

“If I’m understanding you correctly,” she rasped, “You didn’t see my note, so you didn’t know how I felt, but you still broke off a courtship that would have led you to the Sorbonne anyway because you felt the same way about me as I do about you, and then you came back here to tell me?”

Gilbert nodded. “That’s the scope of it. Now, what’s this about Ka’Kwet?”

Anne took another deep breath, the smile that had briefly graced her face dropping instantly. “I thought that going to school… that she’d learn more about us and that she’d be able to help her family—her people—make a better life. But they… they cut her hair. They called her by a different name. They told her that everything she is is wrong…” Anne’s voice shook with rage. “So she escaped, but then they came to her village and they stole her back and they shot her father… They threatened to take all the other children. This isn’t at all what I wanted!”

Gilbert blinked, needing to process for a moment. “That’s... horrible. In what world does schooling include erasing one’s sense of self? Everything they are is wrong? It seemed to me like they were getting along just fine!”

“And then I intervened.” Anne’s eyes were blank.

Gilbert placed his hands at her elbows. “You didn’t know; how could you have known?”

“What I want to know is who _does_ know.” Anne clenched her fists. “And I want the world to know what’s happening. This isn’t right. Matthew and I are going to write a letter to the Globe, but I feel like there has to be more.”

“There is. And we’ll figure it out. Together. I’m going to help you.”

“Thank you.” Anne’s fury had quickly calmed to quiet sincerity. She looked up into Gilbert’s eyes. He was looking hopeful and determined, and that in turn gave her hope. “I know that this is all just terrible timing, and I want—we need to figure out what’s between us, but right now...” She sighed.

“I understand.” Gilbert slid his hands down Anne’s arms to grab her hands. “We got the important bit out of the way, anyway.”

Anne managed a smile with one corner of her mouth. “We did at that.”

“Well...” Gilbert squeezed her hands and then let them go. “I need to go get changed and washed up, but… I’ll call on you later?”

Anne nodded. “I’d like that. I’ll make sure to tell Marilla you’re forgiven.”

Gilbert laughed. “Until then.”

“Until then.” Anne kissed his cheek before she could really decide whether it was a good idea. Gilbert put a hand up to his cheek with a surprised smile, then nodded at Anne and went back to grab the horse. He hopped into the saddle, then waved at Anne, who watched him before heading back inside to give Marilla the news.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably wrong, but dammit, if Gil actually goes through with proposing, I'm going to lose all trust in him as a character (and moreso the writers), even if Winnie refuses and sets him on the right path. Like, I'm totally okay with him trying to sound her out, or with Winnie preemptively heading him off, or even him trying and finding he can't do it, but it's the actual asking that would be like, "okay, no".
> 
> Okay, maybe if he asks and then realizes right away that this is a bad idea, I'll be okay with it, but basically, dude's got one job. The bar could hardly be lower.
> 
> One more thing: Anyone notice how she didn't actually get her pen back? Yeah, I forgot. ^^; Gil's gonna find it when he gets home and be like, "well, at least I really have an excuse to see her again." Anne, meanwhile, is going to realize as soon as she gets up to her room and wants to draft a letter, but she'll know he'll bring it back, so it'll be fine.


End file.
